Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a cleaning liquid for an inkjet recording apparatus, a method for cleaning an inkjet recording apparatus, a recording method, and a cleaning and filling liquid.
Description of the Related Art
Inkjet recording apparatuses are generally subjected to a printing test (discharge test) using a test ink before shipment. After the printing test, the residual test ink is washed away by a cleaning liquid. The cleaning liquid is generally required to have appropriate wettability to ink supply passages and cleaning power. To meet this requirement, conventional cleaning liquids generally contain a surfactant to have wettability and cleaning power.
Conventional cleaning liquids are easy to foam due to the presence of surfactant, and disadvantageously, the generated foam causes a trouble in cleaning operations. When such a conventional cleaning liquid, even in a slight amount, remains in inkjet recording apparatuses after shipment, an initial failure will be caused in ink filling operations. Depending on the type of surfactants used, conventional cleaning liquids may deteriorate ink supply passage members or corrode metallic members. Moreover, conventional cleaning liquids may have poor compatibility with the test ink which will remain in the apparatus in a slight amount to cause defective discharge. Conventional cleaning liquids may further deteriorate ink-repelling property of ink-discharging heads.
Cleaning liquids generally include an organic solvent for the purpose of being prevented from drying when in ink supply passages and being easily mixable with the refilled ink when remaining in the ink supply passages. In the latter case, depending on the type of organic solvents included in the mixture of the ink and the residual cleaning liquid, images printed on a non-porous substrate immediately after refilling of ink may be fixed on the substrate with poor fixing strength.
On the other hand, non-porous substrates (e.g., plastic films) are now used for various industrial applications, such as displays, posters, and bulletin boards, and inks and cleaning liquids have been developed therefor.